business model, customer development, e245, engr245, lean launchpad, lean startup, stanford, startup, steve blank

1. Coloqui
Smarter, personalized, in-time
learning and development for managers
Teresa Briggs
Mentor

3. Real-time communication
feedback & coaching
Timely, nudge based micro
learnings for new tech
managers
Despite many changes along the way, our core mission remains to
empower individuals by overcoming workplace challenges
134 25Potential customers, partners
and experts interviewed
Real users served
Week 0 Week 10

4. OUR JOURNEY
B2C2B
communication
coaching for new
tech managers
MVP 2
Real time
communications
feedback and
coaching
THE ORIGINAL IDEA
A feedback driven,
holistic, micro-learning
program for new tech
managers
MVP 1
The value proposed
did not outweigh
privacy concerns
PIVOT 1
MVP 1 was too
ambitious
PIVOT 2

5. Our initial product hypothesis was that minorities need extra
support to communicate effectively at work
THE ORIGINAL IDEA - WEEK 1
Key Activities:
Analyze conversations
and speech styles in
meetings
Value Proposition:
Help empower women
and minority employees
Revenue Streams:
Per employee
subscriptions paid by
companies
Value Proposition:
Reduce soft-skills
training costs and
increase retention

6. Draft of Envisaged User Dashboard
After 40+ customer interviews, it was clear that analyzing workplace
communication was not valuable enough to justify the privacy concerns
“Getting companies to allow
you to listen in on
conversations, without
enormous business benefits,
just wouldn’t happen.”
- CHRO at major company
THE ORIGINAL IDEA - WEEK 1

7. KEY LEARNING 1
Don’t get
attached to
your ideas
!
“We sometimes really
struggled to objectively assess
our own ideas. You need to
actively try to disprove them,
and not see them as an
extension of yourself. “
- Lorenz

8. I wasn’t prepared. No one
teaches you how to manage
people, and I felt very alone on
this journey.
- Tech Manager
PIVOT 1 - WEEK 2
We discovered that new managers in technical roles struggle with their
new responsibilities, and that they feel unprepared for this transition
29 of 31
technical managers we
spoke with reported
that they were ill
prepared for the job
“

9. KEY LEARNING 2
Pivot
continuously
!
“Not every pivot necessarily
involved a major change. Read
between the lines of the
feedback you receive and
continuously make small
adjustments to refine your value
proposition.”
- Victoria

10. MVP 1 - WEEK 3 to 5
To address this issue, we developed an elaborate product hypothesis that
would holistically help new tech managers execute their new
responsibilities
Customer needs addressed
1. Prioritization/time management
2. Difficult conversations/conflict resolution
3. Mental health support
4. Managing your team
5. 1:1 facilitation and data tracking

11. The key to our value proposition was that our product would close
the loop between feedback and personalized learning
1. Team-generated
feedback for
managers
informs...
2. ...timely,
personalized
micro-learning...
3. ...driving behavior change
MVP 1 - WEEK 3 to 5

12. PIVOT 2 - WEEK 6
While customers reacted positively to our MVP, we decided to
pivot due expert and product complexity concerns
“I’ve never seen any organization
that manages to get its employees to
provide feedback in this way. They
can’t even get them to fill in one HR
survey per quarter.”
“Focus on what you can actually
trial and test in this class. What’s
the one functionality that’s at the
core of what you’re doing? Just do
that.”
- World leading L&D expert - Team Mentor
(A) Expert Concerns (B) Product Complexity

13. Which led us to narrow down our product hypothesis to only
providing managers help with imminent difficult conversations
Insight:
⇒ really challenge yourself
to test the simplest
version of your product
PIVOT 2 - WEEK 6

14. KEY LEARNING 3
Have the
courage to
do less
!
“Boiling our product down to
something really small and
testable was a real challenge for
our team. In the end we
deconstructed our product idea
piece by piece, and looked what
we’d be left with.”
- Karen

15. To test our MVP 2, we used social media campaigns on
Facebook to find potential customers
MVP 2 - WEEK 7 to 10
Insight:
⇒ change one thing at a time, so
you can figure out what works

16. Once we had acquired customers, we provided them with curated, timely
micro-learning via text message
Onboarding Micro-Learning Delivery
Please tell me about a
communication challenge you
will be facing next week?
Disagreement with my PM
Reject a project proposal
Reject a project proposal
Empathy in my 1-on-1’s
…….
Here are 5 tips on how to handle
this conversation:
1) ….
2) ….
3) ….
Hear an expert talk about a similar
situation in this 2min video:
MVP 2 - WEEK 7 to 10

17. “I love how easy it is for me to get the
most important insights in less than 5
min. It’s very tactical, practical and can
be applied straight away.”
- A paying customer
After 3 weeks of serving 25 customers, feedback highlighted the in-
time and bite-size nature of our MVP as the main value drivers
Our average rating: 4.16
N = 21
MVP 2 - WEEK 7 to 10
Rita
Marketing
Executive &
first paying
customer

18. While we have begun to narrow in on product-market fit, next steps
would require testing two further key hypotheses
Hypothesis To-Test 1:
Micro learnings are enough to help
people actually master
communication challenges
Hypothesis To-Test 2:
People will repurchase, we can build a
financially viable business model
MVP 2 - WEEK 7 to 10

19. KEY LEARNINGS - RECAP
!
3key lessons
1. Don’t get attached to your ideas
1. Pivot continuously
1. Have the courage to do less

20. Launching other
startup ideas
Karen Yang
Starting full-time
at Uber
Victoria Toli
Continuing with
his PhD and part-
time with
Coloqui
Brendan
Fereday
Continuing with
MBA and other
ventures
Lorenz
Pallhuber
WHAT’S NEXT FOR COLOQUI?
A big thank you to our amazing mentor Teresa, the Teaching Team & the TAs
Continuing with
MBA and other
ventures
Marisa Reddy